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In an earlier work (1) presented to this Society, I tried to demonstrate that the interaction of projective and introjective mechanisms, constantly operating in the ego from early development, constitutes one of the best guides for understanding the therapeutic process in its entirety.
As I indicated at that time, the importance of projective-introjective interaction in structuring the psyche was first unveiled by Freud, in his anthological comparison of psychic activity with an amoeba’s action (6). This was subsequently highlighted and carefully researched in its multiple specific connections, becoming the keynote of Melanie Klein’s work (16). And finally, Bion gave it a new dimension in his studies about the coexistence of phenomena and non-psychological aspects, as well as psychotic ones, within the same personality (3), as well as admitting “the existence of a mixed state in which the patient is persecuted by feelings of depression and depressed by feelings of persecution”, sentiments which are – according to him – “indistinguishable from bodily sensations” (4).
The simple chronological mention of these facts, which goes from Freud to Bion, passing through Melanie Klein, seems to indicate that, despite the restrictions that some psychoanalysts like Winnicott (20) make, the concept of interaction between the projective and introjective processes grows daily in importance, both for theory and technique.